Case timeline* 2003: Gunfire exchanged between Timothy Beasley and Rheubin M. Taylor II at the Bessie Smith Strut results in the killing of an innocent bystander.* 2006: Mr. Taylor convicted of involuntary manslaughter after forensic evidence shows bullets from his gun caused the victim’s death. Receives judicial diversion and no jail time as punishment.* 2008: The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals forces judge to re-evaluate Mr. Taylor’s sentence, questioning why he deserved such leniency. Later that same year, Judge Buddy Perry upholds his decision and the state abandons all appeals.* 2009: Mr. Beasley pleads guilty to reckless endangerment in the Bessie Smith Strut shooting, receiving a four-year suspended prison sentence provided he follows probationary guidelines.* Monday: Mr. Beasley admits to violating probation. Prosecutors reinstate prison sentence.
One of two young men involved in the 2003 Bessie Smith Strut shooting has admitted to violating the conditions of his probation, bringing back into the spotlight the case that also implicated the county attorney’s son and left an innocent bystander dead.
Timothy Beasley, 27, now is scheduled to go to prison for three years based on an allegation that he brandished a gun during a chance encounter with Rheubin M. Taylor II — the other defendant in the killing — at a local auto parts store in December.
The two were forbidden from having contact as a result of actual gunfire exchanged seven years ago at the annual Bessie Smith Strut. Forensic evidence years later would prove that bullets from Mr. Taylor’s gun, owned by his father, Hamilton County Attorney Rheubin Taylor Sr., killed 20-year-old Tory Hardy.
After the hearing Monday in which Mr. Beasley was sentenced to prison, his mother, Renee Tatum, became livid, questioning the justice of the situation. She pointed out that Mr. Taylor II still has never served any jail time in the shooting.
His “judicial diversion” in the case means he will be allowed to expunge all evidence of the prosecution after his own probationary period ends despite being convicted by a jury in 2006 of voluntary manslaughter.
“The point is, what’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong,” Ms. Tatum said outside the courtroom. “(Mr. Taylor II) shot that boy and he’s still getting away with it. And now my son’s going to prison? This place isn’t called Chattanooga. It’s Lynchtown.”
Mr. Beasley never admitted to doing anything wrong during the December encounter at the Auto Zone on East Third. Street. His lawyer, Alan Dunn, said they could have gone to trial and won.
But because the threshold for proving a probation violation is so low, Mr. Beasley agreed to serve out his four-year suspended sentence on reckless endangerment charges from the Bessie Smith Strut case in exchange for prosecutors dropping the Auto Zone case against him.
Mr. Taylor Sr. sat in court for at least two hours Monday afternoon, waiting for Mr. Beasley’s case to be resolved in front of Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Barry Steelman, saying he only was there on behalf of his son.
He always has declined to comment on the Bessie Smith Strut incident in which a special judge would end up giving Mr. Taylor II sanctions normally reserved for crimes far less serious than homicide.
The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals reversed Judge Buddy Perry’s sentence in the case in late 2008, asking that Judge Perry more fully explain why Mr. Taylor II deserved such a lenient sentence.
Judge Perry did not waver in his ruling, stating in a final order that Mr. Taylor II’s “amenability to correction, the circumstances of the offenses, his criminal history and social history” warranted the punishment he received.